ReLife Player

Unlocked chapter (4/6)

[The difference between man and monster (3)].

«Oh, it’s hot.»

As soon as he found some shade, Eunha dived in.

It was nice to go to the pool on this hot day, but it was a long walk, and he didn’t want to walk.

His mom’s ice water was a lifesaver.

He gulped down the ice-cold water and stuck his tongue out to lick the ice.

The heat was gone, at least a little.

It would only get hotter again once they were out of the shade.

«No Eunha, why don’t you come!»

«It’s not even that hot.»

That was Minji, who had traveled to the sea this summer.

With her sunburned skin, she yelled at him for not catching up with her halfway.

They were running late anyway.

It was all because of Eunha. When she waited for him, he didn’t come out, so she went to his house and found him playing with Eunae without getting ready.

«Hyun-ryul and the alchemy duo are late anyway.»

«They’re going to cram school!»

«Oh, yeah. Come to think of it, don’t you have to go to cram school?»

Eunha asked, suddenly remembering.

Not long ago, his mother had asked him if he wanted to skip cram school.

Of course, I had said yes.

Before the <End of the Century Destruction>, there were many children attending cram schools due to the private education craze.

This hasn’t changed much.

Many children in elementary school were enrolled in cram schools.

This is especially true if you go to Doan Elementary School, which has produced many people from the political and business world.

Of course, among his friends, Hyun-ryul and the Alchemy duo were the only ones attending a cram school.

Eunhyeok had made it clear to his parents that he wanted to be a player, and Hayang was helping out at Happiness in her spare time.

Seona was learning from a tutor who made regular visits to the church.

«Why are you asking about what my dad does, anyway?»

So, do you know what your dad does or not?

Eunha answered with a gloomy expression.

Minji brushed aside the hair stuck to her cheek and spoke.

«My dad runs a math academy. I study math with him every evening. Why? Do you want to join?»

«Yeah, do whatever you want.»

«You’re hopeless.»

Minji pursed her lips.

Stepping out into the shadows, Eunha ignored her rolling eyes and walked to his appointment.

No matter what she said behind him, she eventually followed him.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a super.

«Hey, Kim Min-ji.»

«Why are you calling me?»

«It’s hot, let’s get some ice cream.»

«Hey, you idiot, did you forget what I said earlier? We’re late!»

«If we’re late, they’ll play by themselves. Oh, look. Let’s just get an ice cream and go.»

As if to say, «Let’s have a cigarette and go.»

Eunha poked Minji in the side as she came closer and pointed to the supermarket.

Minji frowned.

She had an appointment.

If she left now, she’d be late, but if she ate ice cream, she’d be late for a longer time.

«…If I’m late, it’s your fault, I don’t know anything about it. Do you understand?»

«You’re going to eat it anyway. Hey, you’re late because of me, so I’ll take the shot. What are you going to eat?»

«I’ll have another Together!»

«Ugh, I think I know who’s mukminji.»

«I told you not to tell mukminji!»

«Don’t be silly, pick what you want to eat. It’s not every day that I do this.»

Two people step on a plastic box and argue while choosing ice cream.

When they stopped talking, they were sitting on a bench and shoveling ice cream into their mouths.

Eating ice cream under the shaded roof felt like a vacation.

I didn’t want to go out into the heat again.

I didn’t want to.

[…please help me!]

«Didn’t you hear Seona’s voice?»

«Oh, blame my mood….»

[Someone call a player!]

I couldn’t blame it on my mood.

Eunha, who was leisurely eating his ice cream, changed his expression and deployed his sensing net.

He sensed a familiar wavelength in the immediate neighbourhood .

It was Hayang.

The fact that she was releasing such an unstable amount of mana from her normally indistinguishable body meant that something had happened.

«Why do I never get a day off?»

It’s vacation, why can’t he just rest?

Eunha sighed. As he expanded his sensing network further, he picked up another unstable mana around the mana emitted by Hayang.

It looked like she was being chased by a monster.

«Hey, aren’t we in danger, I keep hearing Seona’s voice?»

«I know. You should…call the Mana Management Bureau. You know the number, right?»

«I know the number. What if there’s a monster or something, then we’re in a really dangerous situation?»

That’s why I’m up from my ice cream right now.

Eunha didn’t answer Minji’s question, but handed over his swim bag.

Minji would be good at this.

With a popsicle in his mouth, he adjusted his mana and leaped to where the waves of energy clashed.

Cheonbo

«Hey, No Eunha-!! Shouldn’t you tell me where the monster came from?»

☆

«─Why are you being chased by a monster on a vacation day?»

«That sounds like something the captain would say….»

Choi Eunhyuk, is that all you have to say?

Eunha heard what Eunhyuk was saying and turned his head.

It was unexpected to see him talking so calmly even in this situation.

Come to think of it, neither Hayang nor Seona showed any signs of fear in the face of the monster.

…Let’s roll some more.

Rolling didn’t mean punishing them, but rather increasing the intensity of their training.

After nearly three years of basic training, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give them a little more advanced training.

That is, if they wanted to.

Of course, it was necessary for Eunhyeok, who sang about being a player even in his normal life.

Especially when it comes to killing monsters.

I’ll have to try it when I get a chance.

But first, I had to deal with the monster in front of me.

A monster that looked like a cross between a fly and a mosquito.

A seventh-ranked monster, the Mosquito Fly.

Eunha watched as the creature that had fallen after being kicked shakily got up.

«…Well… I don’t need to tell you.»

He didn’t have to tell them to back off.

As soon as he manifested the mana in his body, Hayang quickly deployed a barrier.

Thinking about it, the kids had formed a party of their own even before he arrived, with each of them taking on a different role.

All three of them had the qualities to be players.

«Ugh, Eunha, you know, that monster….»

«That’s right, Captain, he suddenly turned into a monster!»

«Turned?»

Eunha frowned.

There was no trace of humanity in the fly as it spread its wings and took in the sight.

Apap-pak-pap-pak.

«…Ah, something like that.»

It wasn’t until he heard the mechanical sounds of the monster that he realized what had happened.

There were only three reasons for a human to transform into a monster.

Judging by the children’s stories, the monster flying at him was transformed by a mana frenzy.

A mana frenzy occurs when a person accumulates more mana than their body can sustain, or when they lose control of their mana.

It was not a common occurrence.

People who suffer from mana explosion usually explode before their bodies can handle it and transform into monsters.

It was impossible to reconstruct the body without the speed of the explosion exceeding the speed of the body.

«But a Mosquito Flyer….»

However, the humnas that transformed into monsters after a mana explosion were different from conventional monsters.

A human that transformed into a monster with just a mana surge would have been nothing more than a mass of flesh that was busy inflating my body.

So there was one case where he was transformed into a Mosquito Fly.

He was infected by a Mosquito Fly.

A seventh-rank monster, the Mosquito Fly does not feed on humans, but absorbs the mana in their bodily fluids.

Humans drained of mana do not die.

They simply experience anomalies, much like a mosquito bite that only shows signs afterward.

The ability to control mana is disrupted.

As the body tries to regain mana to make up for what the Mosquito Fly has stolen, it accumulates more mana than it can hold.

The consequences were obvious.

A mana explosion.

Either his body would explode or he would transform into a Mosquito Fly.

«When you defeat a Mosquito Fly, shouldn’t you test the people you come in contact with to see if they’re infected?»

Eunha was dumbfounded.

It was one of the basics that were thoroughly taught at the Player Academy.

But there were humans infected with the Mosquito Fly running around?

Whether it was the players or the hospital, it was evidence of a lack of follow-through.

Either that, or there was no manual for exterminating the Mosquito Fly in this time.

«I don’t know who’s at fault, but you assholes, you can’t handle this?»

In the end, it didn’t change the fact that someone had to clean up their own shit.

Eunha swallowed the curse word that escaped his mouth and jumped up just as Mosquito Fly was descending.

He loaded his body with mana.

It barely dodged the attack that landed so close to ‘it’.

«Huh.»

It didn’t do much damage.

The opponent was a Seventh Rank.

Even though he had more mana in his body than before, it was hard to deal with it without a weapon that could hold it.

He wasn’t Bruno, and he didn’t have the skills to damage monsters with martial arts.

Sazzsaizzaiisszz.

Fizzzuzp

«…Is he still conscious?»

I’m getting pretty tired of this.

It wouldn’t be strange if his consciousness was gone and he was left with the mana-hungry instincts of a monster.

Nevertheless, its demeanor was a mixture of human consciousness and monster instincts.

He stepped back to avoid an attack. He couldn’t rush recklessly at the one flying in the sky.

Dodging the creature’s long straw-like proboscis, Eunha used a fist imbued with mana to strike its chin.

It didn’t stop at the jab.

Its slender legs posed no threat.

Eunha continued to pummel it with his fist until the creature plunged into the sky, trying to escape by thrusting its legs.

The creature began transforming again at that moment.

«-What?»

Its tattered legs twisted in various directions before being covered in thick flesh.

It resembled human skin. On the ends of the stick-like legs, parts reminiscent of human hands appeared.

It was a process of Demonization, a phenomenon so rare that it was almost non-existent.

That’s why he couldn’t ignore the memory of lifting his head from beyond the memories. While making a ‘eek-ekk’ sound, Eunha called Hayang, who was maintaining the barrier.

«Hayang! Didn’t the old man turn into a monster earlier?»

«Uh, yeah!»

«I saw it myself! It was an old man!»

«And it wasn’t a woman?»

«No, it was a man. I saw it too.»

So, it’s not Belzebuth.

Belzebuth was a woman.

Before the regression, a group of demons were responsible for mass terrorism in South Korea.

Called one-man, one-woman walking disasters, they called themselves the ‘new humans’.

The Seonnyeo government condemned their terrorism. Calling them demons in derogatory terms, they called their group the Guma.

And one of the gumas was Belzebuth, the ruler of flies.

When he saw Mosquito Fly in human form, he couldn’t help but think of her.

But she was a woman. Not a man.

The time for demons was still far off. Guma was still more than a decade away.

Gu-gu-gu-g-o-g-og-u

«Misleading people.»

My memories of Belzebuth were not good.

Disturbingly so.

The more he recalled memories he had been trying to forget, the more annoyance welled up within him.

«You guys stay here.»

The mosquito fly shot up into the sky.

It was trying to escape.

Who gave it the right to run away? He had no intention of letting it go just like that.

However, chasing after the one flying to the sky wasn’t feasible.

It would be possible if there was a path, but he jumped onto walls instead.

«Don’t go anywhere. Wait for someone to come, whether it’s a player or Minji.»

He jumped onto the wall and immediately climbed up the tree after landing, leaping onto the roof.

The path to pursue it wasn’t limited to asphalt roads.

Any place his feet touched was a path.

Everything he stepped on was a path.